Visible Image - Valentines

Love is in the air!  This week at Visible Image our theme is Valentines, and my brief is clean and simple (CAS), my favourite style.

I wanted a pink and gold background, so I smooshed some Picked Raspberry Distress Ink and some gold writing ink onto an acrylic block, spritzed it and mixed it with the palette knife.  

I bought the set of writing inks at the Museum of London several years ago and never opened them, but with a good shake and mix they were usable.

I dipped the card onto the mix and swooshed it about a bit,

then topped it up and dipped another piece of card.

Now I couldn't decide which one to use!

The one on the right had a bit more ink than I really wanted, so I used that as my test piece.  I set up the heart cluster stamp from Forever In Your Heart and Bestie! from Best Birthday Ever on my MISTI and stamped.  I wasn't really happy with the spacing - they were too far apart so the design didn't look cohesive, so I stamped another heart cluster in between to balance the design.

For the second card, I positioned the stamps slightly nearer, then after stamping added some stencilling in Picked Raspberry in a couple of areas using the Halftone stencil.

I mounted this panel onto gold mirri card then onto my white card base.

For the double heart card, I mounted onto gold mirri but with a narrower border, and angled the panel slightly.

One of them is going to my hubby, who is my bestie, for Valentines Day.

The stamps and stencils are available on the Visible Image website - go treat yourself!

Seize The Birthday - Kraft & Red

Hello peeps, time for a new challenge at Seize The Birthday, and time to welcome our newest team member and my friend, Jenny Martin of My Paper Epiphany.

This challenge, set by Glenda, is Kraft and Red (but you could always play along with our Anything Goes theme if you prefer, as long as it's birthday-themed).

I used a couple of flowers from Tim Holtz Abstract Florals set and coloured them red with Tombow brush markers, and added highlights with a white Posca pen.  The sentiment is from TH Glorious Bouquet.

Pop on over to the Seize The Birthday blog for some more fabulous Kraft and red inspiration from the team, and from our surprise party guests, and play along with us.

Visible Image - Teenage Birthday

Morning!  Now, that's not a greeting that you get to say often to a teenager, but teenagers are our focus this week.  And I've brought you a twofer of teenage birthday cards, albeit accidentally.

I wanted to make a graffiti background, so I started by covering an A5 card panel with Distress Inks, swiping the full-sized pads directly onto the paper, then using the mini pads to fill in the gaps.

Then I placed the Graffiti stencil over the panel, and used a blending tool to fill the spaces with Black Soot Oxide.  I has to be Oxide because the normal Black Soot doesn't give as dense a coverage.

Looks a bit of a mess at this stage, but when you remove the stencil the colours really pop through the black.

Meanwhile I stamped the T-shirt from Nothing to Wear, added a star and the 'smile' from the same set, then die cut it using the coordinating die.

I popped the T-shirt die onto the panel to give me an idea of placement for the white T-shirt, then I realised that if I die-cut the T-shirt out of the panel I could inlay the white T-shirt, and have a graffiti t-shirt for another card - win, win!  

To complete my first card it was just a case of lining up the white T-shirt into the graffiti panel and securing it on the reverse with some washi tape, then mounting it onto my white card base.

Because I'd placed the T-shirt centrally, there wasn't really enough room to add the sentiment on the front, so I added a strip to the inside of the card and stamped 'happy birthday' from the Go To Words set.

Here's a close-up of the smile logo on the T-shirt.

Now to the bonus card!  Once I'd die cut the graffiti T-shirt I placed it into the white negative diecut on the MISTI then lined up the stamp to stamp the outline (pity I hadn't left the stamp on the 'MISTI).  Stamping the outline gives the die-cut shape so much definition.

I chose a vibrant green card base to complement the graffiti colours, then added some marks from the Transmission Glitch set in opposing corners, 

and the 'happy birthday' from Go To Words in the bottom right corner.

I love it when I get two cards for the price of one!

All of these products are available on the Visible Image website, go treat yourself!

Seize The Birthday - Use Something New

Hello, and Happy New Year from the Seize The Birthday Team!  Our first challenge of the year has been set by Cathy, and it's Use Something New.

It's a great challenge to start the year because it means we get to play with our new Christmas or Black Friday goodies, if we haven't already ;)

I took advantage of the Sizzix sales of Tim Holtz products a while back, and the goodies have been piled up waiting to be used.  And now Tim is stepping back from releases, the bank balance has heaved a sigh of relief and I might get to actually use what I have instead of stockpiling (separate hobby).

Anyway, I used Brushstroke Flowers #1 and the ladybird from Funky Insects.  And in line with my New Year's resolution (again!) to try to join in more challenges, I'm adding this to Darnell's NBUS challenge.

Hopefully as the year progresses I'll manage to enter a few more challenges and beat last year's attempts.

Pop on over to the Seize The Birthday blog to see what new products the rest of the design team have used, and join in.   You could play Anything Goes if you prefer. 

We also have three surprise party guests for this challenge - Amanda Mertz from Did You Stamp Today?, who is with us for the next two months, and previous winners Valerie and Denise.

See you in the gallery!

Visible Image - The Great Outdoors

Morning, Visible Image fans!  Our theme this week is The Great Outdoors.  As I write this post the Great Outdoors isn't being very kind to us.  After heavy rain and winds, my village is flooded with some access routes blocked.  Somehow the flood defences didn't do the job this time.  Fortunately our house is on slightly higher ground so we're not directly affected.

So naturally I'm thinking of better days and nicer weather, and what is nicer than seeing dragonflies dancing across water, with all the tiny specs and particles dancing with them.

I started by stamping the images and sentiment from Live In The Moment using my MISTI stamping platform, making sure that the card was aligned right into the corner, because I was going to overstamp later.

I used the Curves stencil to create water across the lower section of the panel with Tumbled Glass and Peacock Feathers Distress Inks.

I added Tim Holtz Distress Spritz in Tumbled Glass and Crushed Olive across the top of the panel, dropped some of the spritz onto my mat and painted in the wings, adding a touch of Antique Linen as well.  

The sheen is gorgeous!

I knew that painting Distress Spritz over the black ink would cover it, which is why I was going to place the panel back in the MISTI and re-stamp.  You can see the before and after here:

All that remained was to mount the panel onto some mirri card, then onto my base card.

Here's a close-up of the wings after re-stamping.

And a close-up of the sentiment with the stencilling.  Love the teeny tiny splatters!

You can find this stamp set, and lots of other wildlife/great outdoors sets, in the Visible Image store here.  You'll also find plenty of stencils to add background and interest to your cards.  Happy stamping!